What Are the Benefits of Zone Heating?
- Heating--and cooling--only certain zones of a home conserves energy costs.finnish fireplace image by Adrian Hillman from Fotolia.com
Zone heating refers to a home heating system that focuses on warming certain areas of a house instead of the entire building. Homeowners accomplish this by using a variety of methods, including fireplaces, heating appliances and multiple thermostats. If you own a home in an area with a temperate climate, where there's little chance of pipes freezing in the winter, this practice could offer cost savings. - Heating an entire house using a furnace wastes energy by warming rooms that aren't occupied. Zone heating, as a supplement to central heating, cuts down on wasted energy by focusing heat on rooms that are in use. You can do this a number of ways, including with an electric fireplace, a heat pump or an electric baseboard heater. Lowering the temperature on one of a home's multiple thermostats accomplishes the same thing. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, zone heating can produce energy savings of more than 20 percent compared with full-home heating.
- Bad weather often leads to power outages and a loss of heat, since most furnaces rely on electricity to operate. In these circumstances, some zone heating methods are a dependable heat source. Fireplaces and gas heaters, for example, don't require electricity to run. A fireplace will illuminate an otherwise dark room during a power outage, too. But keep in mind that most of the heat produced will escape through the chimney, so fireplaces are most useful as an emergency method of zone heating.
- In the past, gas heaters were more functional than attractive, but modern gas stoves and fireplaces resemble their wood-fueled counterparts, which many people consider to be the centerpiece of a room. You won't have to sacrifice the appearance of your rooms in order to heat them more efficiently with zone heating.